Horizon 2020 – UK Overview and Q&A

The UK government is committed to ensuring that UK and EU researchers, universities and businesses will be able to continue to collaborate after EU exit.

The (UK) government’s priority remains ensuring the draft Withdrawal Agreement is finalised and concluded. This would ensure that UK entities’ right to participate in Horizon 2020 would be unaffected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU for the lifetime of projects financed by the current MFF.

This Q&A sets out how the UK government will seek to ensure collaboration continues through a variety of measures, the following of which are detailed below:

Focussing on finalising and concluding the Withdrawal Agreement;

The Underwrite Guarantee and the Post EU Exit Guarantee Extension, should this be required;

Facilitating mobility for UK and EU researchers; and

Looking beyond Horizon 2020 to UK participation in Horizon Europe and the future Euratom Research and Training (Euratom R&T) programme

The draft Withdrawal Agreement envisages that existing projects will continue to receive an uninterrupted flow of EU funding for the lifetime of the project. This includes funding for FP7 participants.

After 29 March 2019 if there’s ‘no deal’

On 24 July 2018, the UK government announced that it would extend the guarantee to cover UK participants’ funding in all Horizon 2020 calls open to third country participants from the date of exit. The guarantee would cover the lifetime of their projects, even if they last beyond 2020.

In a ‘no deal’ scenario, UK researchers and businesses would still be able to apply to and (continue to) participate in all those Horizon 2020 calls open to third country participants from the date of exit.

Published NMBP calls are open to third country participants.

Additional detail is contained within the following official links – please let us know if you have any queries: